Poppulo
Leadership

Putting the Customer First in Times of Growth: How to Scale Effectively

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 — July 29th, 2022

Putting the Customer First in Times of Growth: How to Scale Effectively

Company growth is a wonderful thing, and there’s no doubt it should be celebrated. But with growth, comes additional challenges.

Time and time again we see businesses scale at a rate that means they have to implement more and more complicated structures. When this happens, it becomes all too easy to get bogged down in those structures and lose sight of what really matters—the people buying what you’re selling.

From your customer’s perspective, it’s the equivalent of watching a play and realizing the actors on stage are more concerned with the props or backdrops than they are with their actual audience.
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Whatever you’re offering, your customers are your audience, and their needs should be front of mind, no matter what.

So, how can you ensure that you’re making this happen, even at times of extreme growth?

The challenges facing businesses as they grow

As a company evolves, the organizational design in place naturally becomes more complex.

Departments mature, additional products and solutions are added to their portfolios, subject matter expertise becomes more important, centers of excellence are introduced: the list goes on…

Companies must scale in order to prosper and drive innovation. However, if your internal structure becomes too complicated as it expands, or you allow yourself to become too wrapped up in it, it’s easy to forget the basics such as: are you delivering the best possible product or outcomes for your customer?

Failure to keep on top of your customer’s ever-changing needs can result in average outcomes at best, and poor ones at worst.

Maintaining solid customer relationships, which are built on a foundation of trust, requires nurturing on an ongoing basis. Allowing the needs of your customer to take a back seat means that these relationships suffer, and loyalty decreases.

This, when left unchecked, can ultimately lead to lost business.

How can we retain a customer-first approach while scaling?

The question is, how do we manage that change while continuing to deliver when it comes to customer objectives?

First, take inspiration from small businesses.

By nature, smaller teams are more customer-centric because they aren’t bogged down in intricate processes. Simpler systems allow them to be more agile, drive more innovation, and above all, to focus on the customer, rather than the staging of it all.

Automation technologies like those offered at ServiceNow could reduce the amount of time spent on these administrative, manual tasks, and free up valuable staff hours which can then be allocated to nurturing vital customer relationships. Billdu's automated invoicing also increases customer satisfaction by delivering timely and accurate invoices and offering a seamless payment process. It promotes trust and creates a smoother transaction experience for all clients.

Equally, as organizations grow, the likelihood of finding yourself working with multiple teams in multiple silos increases. A custom-designed platform could help you regain full visibility over all of your teams, making it easier to identify problem areas and resolve them before they impact the customer experience.

Ask yourself, can we streamline processes to allow our teams to be more flexible? Could any manual, time-consuming tasks be automated to allow employees to focus more on the customer? Are my teams becoming more siloed and less efficient as we evolve?

If the answer to just one of these questions is yes, consider what technology platforms need to be implemented in order to make that a reality as your company continues to grow.

How ServiceNow is navigating change while remaining customer-centric

This mindset is necessary for businesses of all shapes and sizes, across all industries, including ours.

2022 is set to be a big one for ServiceNow. We’re in the midst of a period of large-scale growth that’s set to continue throughout this year and beyond, so keeping our focus on the customer is just as much a priority for us as it should be for anybody else.

That growth, and yours, is positive.

But, as you figure out how to make it work behind the scenes, remember to keep one eye on your audience…

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